Yeddyurappa surrenders, sent to jail

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) first chief minister in South India, Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yeddyurappa, 68, was sent to judicial custody till October 22, 2011, by the Lokayukta Special Court here on Saturday. He will be lodged at the Parappana Agrahara Central Jail in Bangalore.

Yeddyurappa, who went into hiding for a short period after the Lokayukta special court rejected his bail plea in two cases pertaining to denotification of land, surrendered before the court minutes before the close of the day’s proceedings. He landed on the court premises from the back gate.

Earlier this morning, Yeddyurappa had abstained from court proceedings when Judge N K Sudhindra Rao pronounced his verdict. Yeddyurappa sent a medical certificate saying he was suffering from backpain and sought exemption from personal appearance. But the court did not consider the appeal. However, the former Karnataka chief minister’s two sons — Lok Sabha member from Shimoga B Y Raghavendra and B Y Vijayendra— and son-in-law R Sohan Kumar were granted conditional bail. The three were also accused along with Yeddyurappa.

Rao rejected the bail plea of S N Krishnaiah Shetty, who was minister in the Yeddyurappa cabinet, and directed his arrest. He is lodged at the central jail.

Yeddyurappa is the first accused in two cases of illegal land denotification for monetary gains. The cases were filed by two Bangalore advocates Sirajin Bhasha and N K Balaraj in January this year after Governor H R Bhardwaj gave them sanction to launch criminal proceedings against Yeddyurappa and his kin for conspiring to denotify land in and around Bangalore in return for monetary gains.

Bhasha alleged that Yeddyurappa denotified land in Arakere, Agara, Devarachikkanahalli and Geddalahalli in and around Bangalore in favour of the accused causing huge losses to the state exchequer.

Yeddyurappa as chief minister quit on July 31 after the then Lokayukta (ombudsman) N Santosh Hegde recommended his trial for graft in illegal mining scam. The court order has come as an embarrassment to the BJP and Yeddyurappa, who is credited with installing the party’s first government in the south.

Meanwhile, senior counsel for Yeddyurappa, Ravi B Naik, told reporters outside the court that he would challenge in high court the order of the Lokayukta and seek bail.

Soon after the Lokayukta court turned down bail to Yeddyurappa, Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, who was supposed to leave for a visit to Mumbai cancelled his trip and held consultations with some of his ministerial colleagues at his home office. Home Minister R Ashoka, PWD Minister C M Udasi and Women and Child Development Minister C C Patil were present at the meeting. City Police Commissioner Jyoti Prakash Mirji also called on the chief minister.

Earlier, when the Lokayukta court pronounced the order, former minister Krishnaiah Setty collapsed following which the judge directed jail authorities to ensure proper treatment to him. Setty is the third former minister to be remanded in judicial custody after Katta Subramanya Naidu and H Halappa. Naidu was arrested in connection with land scams in Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board, while Halappa was held on charges of raping a woman. While Naidu continues to be in judicial custody, Halappa was released on bail last year.

Cases against Yeddyurappa

Denotifying (freeing from government control) of 2.5 acres at Arakere village and 1.7 acres at Devarachikkanahalli village in south Bangalore and 1.21 acres at Geddalahalli village in east Bangalore when Yeddyurappa was chief minister from May 30, 2008 to July 31, 2011.

The complaint against Yeddyurappa, his two sons, son-in-law, Krishnaiah Shetty, and BJP legislator Hemchandra Sagar and nine others was that land were sold in contravention of the laws governing the sale of government land. The charge against Yeddyurappa and others was that they conspired to denotify the land in return for “kickbacks”.

The two cases are among the five filed by Bhasha and Balaraj on January 23 this year, after Governor H R Bhardwaj gave them sanction to launch criminal proceedings against Yeddyurappa and others.

The two advocates contend that Yeddyurappa and his family illegally gained Rs 189 crore from all the land deals in the five cases and the state exchequer suffered a loss of Rs 465 crore.